Google tried to block media coverage of gender discrimination case • Hacker News Board

Re: Google tried to block media coverage of gender discrimination case

#21

Post by malandrew » Tue, May 23, 2017, 3:05 PM UTC

sitkack wrote: post #17

malandrew wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't work for google. I'm not even a fan of google right now. No, google shouldn't play along. The media surrounding such topics is so biased and self-serving to the agenda a journalist is trying to push that the less you make public the better off you are because you minimize what material you give for journalists writing about these topics to twist in service of furthering their agenda.

Google is very committed to gender equality. If there is systematic bias, this would be huge news. The only responsible track to take is to own the narrative and fix it. For whatever reason, some people at Google have played into this by not releasing the numbers initially asked for before the suit.

You can be very committed to addressing bias and still go about it your own way without the meddling of armchair quarterbacks and the peanut gallery.

Re: Google tried to block media coverage of gender discrimination case

#22

Post by boolint » Tue, May 23, 2017, 5:33 PM UTC

pc2g4d wrote: post #12

boolint wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Women looked at individually do have some additional risk over your average man due to biology as well as the desire to actively mother children". Hmmmm....

"[T]he gender pay gap only exists for women over 40, suggesting it is less about gender and more about something else entirely. Indeed, women in their twenties currently out-earn men and it is only when they start a family that the pay gap starts to emerge. "Is this down to nasty employers undervaluing female staff once they’ve had a baby or to outdated societal expectations that women are the main child carers? "Or…

I just think it is extremely discriminatory to make hiring and salary decisions based on the faulty assumption that all women want to raise children.

Re: Google tried to block media coverage of gender discrimination case

#23

Post by pc2g4d » Tue, May 23, 2017, 7:08 PM UTC

boolint wrote: post #22

pc2g4d wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"[T]he gender pay gap only exists for women over 40, suggesting it is less about gender and more about something else entirely. Indeed, women in their twenties currently out-earn men and it is only when they start a family that the pay gap starts to emerge. "Is this down to nasty employers undervaluing female staff once they’ve had a baby or to outdated societal expectations that women are the main child carers? "Or…

I just think it is extremely discriminatory to make hiring and salary decisions based on the faulty assumption that all women want to raise children.

It is discriminatory and I think it's fair to feel upset at being painted with such a broad brush.

It seems right now that the choice faced by society is framed as binary: should we require equal pay across genders, or should we not? And each of these possibilities has both costs and benefits. Here are some costs and benefits of equal pay worth considering:

Costs: By requiring employers to pay women more than the employers assess to be their worth, fewer women will be employed, this at a time when gender ratios in many professions (especially IT!) are horrendously lopsided. Essentially, equal pay can be implemented as a price floor, meaning that the amount of female employment demanded will be less than it would at the natural equilibrium. Legislating equal pay might change some attitudes, but just entrench others.

Benefits: The women who are working get paid more. Society is seen as more just which likely alleviates angst all around. Women's voices are seen as more valuable because women are paid just as much as men, which disempowers sexists in their discrimination. More women will want to work at the higher price point, giving firms a better pool of applicants to choose from.

Invert these points to get costs/benefits of the status quo.

Both choices seem to incur both notable benefits and substantial costs. Surely there's some third way?